Wish list for 10.0.9

I know we all want more from FCPX, even though quite a few of us are pretty happy (or ecstatic) with it by this point. Supposing that 10.1 will be a major update to coincide with the new Mac Pro, what do you guys want in the mean time?

My personal request would be a more robust project duplication dialogue, one that allowed trimming and handles of used media for round tripping (with or without time code on original media).

I have an endless bug where the program freezes on "Restoring Window layout".

I've followed all the Internet instructions and it doesn't work.

The only thing that works is a complete uninstall and reinstall. It absolutely sucks.

Perhaps I need to reload my system, but that sucks too.

Get rid of the beachballs. It's summer on this side of the world and the weather is appropriate for beachballs, but really, I could do without them.

Beyond the feature requests and workflow enhancements, it is hard to try and move the place where I work towards fulltime fcpx deployment. I would really like to, but I simply can't make the recommendation at this point. I am hoping this fall update is good and full of great features, but I would really like to see some stabilization and performance enhancements first.

10.0.8 has been the worst for me too. Many oddities. Especially crashing if I have the scopes open. Always if I'm playing back, and often if I'm adjusting something with scopes open. I've figured out that any plugin is the culprit. A stock install is solid as a rock. But add any plugin and the scopes cause a crash. WTH?

I have but a handful myself. I thought it was one particular one. Removed, trashed prefs. But then it started happening again. So I tried each one. After removal of pretty much any plugin, and trashing my prefs, the problem would come back. So really the problem seems to be that any plugin is corrupting something in my prefs when I use scopes. I guess. Who knows. I'm not a programmer. I'm guessing, that like Jeremy, a full reinstall of the system would fix it. But that's ridiculous.

Here's 101 feature requests. It should cover most of the bases. Now to prioritize and add to that.http://fcpx.tv/top.html

Multiple live scopes is one of many on my own wish list.
Better Roles integration and improvements which could generate a list of feature requests just in that family.
One that only a compression geek like me would want, In Share (and Compressor) High Profile, CABAC encoding preferably with x264 codec.

One hallmark of the modern Apple is that they seem to REALLY like to have and extremely clear IP thread running through their core products. Tying X264's GNU-GPL into X (a commercial product) would likely make a lot of Apple's legal team very nervous.

If I had Apple's money, I'd prefer to OWN the technologies in my products as well.

No reason I can see for them to muddy the waters.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com - video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

I don't expect to get what I want at all. This is my own MAJOR peeve at Apple Pro Apps. Apple should have the R&D wherewithal to develop their own quality H.264 encoder. For a company that dumped tape and dumped authored disk, touting file delivery, they have what must be the weakest H.264 encoder in the professional (and even amateur) market. Even the current iPhone and iPad can play High Profile H.264 files but you can't use Apple software to encode it.

[Bill Davis]"If I had Apple's money, I'd prefer to OWN the technologies in my products as well. "

But they don't seem the least bit interested in "owning" a decent H.264 encoder.

• Expansion of ROLES as a means to improve timeline organization and facilitate audio mixing.
• Collaborative editing- improving the sharing of Events and Projects between editors
• Motion integration- whatever new form round-tripping will take
• Better project versioning
• Backups- I've never lost any meaningful amount of data, but some people seems to have real issues. This should be rock solid. As much redundancy as necessary.

1. I'm with Jeremy on this. Would much prefer performance improvements over features. I need an app with less flaky and more consistent behavior.

2. The second biggest hope for me is to apply consistent behavior models to all types of clips. Right now, the behavior is different between primary, secondary and connected clips. Possibly an advanced/expanded secondary storyline structure that would re-introduced some of the missing track-like functionality.

Aindreas' stance on FCPX has seeming softened as the bloom has come off the rose on Adobe.

Many people's concerns and criticisms of the software can be valid, as it still isn't well suited to some workflows. But the critics are kidding themselves if they think those issues aren't going to be addressed, and the software won't continue to mature.

No one can seriously believe that no matter how badly bungled the FCPX launch was, that people won't consider it when it meets their needs again. Was it really that long ago that people forget Premier was the red-headed "unprofessional" whipping boy? Things change. And people who hold a grudge forever against any company that makes a mistake are going to find themselves either quickly running out of options or changing software way more frequently than anyone should want.

I don't think it was "bungled" in any meaningful way shape or form. X was NEVER going to satisfy the legions who were wedded at their DNA to the FCP-Legacy experience.

They simply HAD to let the adolescent software into the market so that it's "trial by fire" could begin.

In hindsight, the process simply divided the editing community into two camps. Those who let their emotional reactions delay (or even terminate) their exploration or use of the software - and those who were interested enough to continue to look into it and discover it's potential for value.

Those of us who liked it from day one - now have an nearly 2 year jump on those who ignored it. I love that.

Yeah, it wojuld have sucked if Apple had actually made a dumb or non-functional product, but they certainly did not - I've NEVER failed of complete of deliver a project with it on-time.

I truly appreciate the guys like Jeremy who are still pushing for it's still developing capabilities to meet the needs of the complex and connected "shop" workflows that the commercial style users need - but unlike him, I haven't had a crash or slowup or lost keystroke in literally MONTHS.

So it's certainly a YMMV deal.

FWIW.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com - video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

I'd agree, though I have heard that the NAB preview was a VERY last minute decision, leading to all the hubbub and bumped presenters. It it may have launched before even the developers thought it was ready.

How different would the response have been if 10.0 had had the capabilities of 10.0.3, with multicam, broadcast monitoring, XML, and other features at launch?

It's impossible to say whether more damage would have been done by waiting another year and launching at NAB the following year, vs the way things played out.

But a large part of it for me will always be an issue of positioning. If FCPX had been handled like the OS9 to OSX transition, over a couple of years with a steady migration of features- I think much of the vitriol could have been avoided. People don't mind change so much if it isn't sprung on them and they feel like they're participating in it rather than having it forced on them.

[Marcus Moore]"But a large part of it for me will always be an issue of positioning. If FCPX had been handled like the OS9 to OSX transition, over a couple of years with a steady migration of features- I think much of the vitriol could have been avoided. People don't mind change so much if it isn't sprung on them and they feel like they're participating in it rather than having it forced on them."

Marcus, your missing the special logic of Bill's posting, which has been consistent, if nothing else, since the beginning of this forum. FCPX was created solely for Bill Davis, Apple made it especially for him, and the fact that the launch alienated so many has only allowed Bill to get the jump on all those poor saps, which was Apple's intention all along.

[Herb Sevush]"FCPX was created solely for Bill Davis, Apple made it especially for him, and the fact that the launch alienated so many has only allowed Bill to get the jump on all those poor saps, which was Apple's intention all along."

And you have no CLUE how much I appreciate Randy, Brian and the rest of the development team doing that for me... even tho they had absolutely no clue that they were!

I think I fed a stray kitten about that time. Maybe the kitten was MAGIC and subtly granted me my deepest wish!

Which must have been: "Please, oh great Cat Spirit, let very, very few of us see the potential value in this so that our competitors continue to squabble and piss and moan while I get my butt to work trying my best to learn it."

It's a Cat Goddess thing. I'm sure of it.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com - video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Bill Davis]"Yeah, it wojuld have sucked if Apple had actually made a dumb or non-functional product, but they certainly did not - I've NEVER failed of complete of deliver a project with it on-time.

I truly appreciate the guys like Jeremy who are still pushing for it's still developing capabilities to meet the needs of the complex and connected "shop" workflows that the commercial style users need - but unlike him, I haven't had a crash or slowup or lost keystroke in literally MONTHS."

I really really love a lot of what FCPX has to offer. I do not mind the concepts even though there is some limited capability, I do like where it seems to be heading. I don't mind not having tracks, I actually enjoy the magnetism, and of course it could all stand to use some fine tuning.

I also understand that even in this small shop, we push things around differently than some setups. That is to say, perhaps our setup is more "complex" than most, but it certainly isn't as complex as the big operations, hence the quotes. Our workflow setup was born out of necessity, so we need to operate in some sort of similar fashion. I'm not saying we have to work exactly like we do in FCP7, I am completely welcome to change, but the change needs to work reliably and so far, it's not quite reliable enough.

I haven't missed a delivery, but that is not necessarily a qualifier I use to judge an NLE, I expect that to be a given. If it's a professional NLE, of course you aren't going to miss a delivery, or maybe that's just my requirement.

I have lost exactly four Events since the beginning of FCPX. Most of the Events are lost have a decent amount of media, and they most almost often include synced clips. Synced clips seem to cause lots of slow downs and hang ups, but that is just my observation, perhaps that doesn't happen to everyone. I just want an update that inspires more confidence in stability.

[Oliver Peters]"Timeline scrub bar under each window, especially when Event Viewer is open."

I've read this a few times and I wonder about how it mucks with the existing UI.

Right now, skimming clips occurs whenever you mouse over them passively- and that clip shows up in your Viewer (or Event Viewer) window automatically. No clicking required.

The action your describing would necessitate having to actively click on a clip (or double click ala Legacy FCP) to "load it" in the Event Viewer. So is this clip then "locked" in the Event Viewer until you disengage it? Otherwise as you move your mouse from the clip in the Event Browser over to the Event Viewer, you're sure to pass over other clips- what happens? Is skimming disabled until you release the active clip in the Event Viewer? As I said I think it poses some UI problems.

If I need to quickly get a longer filmstrip of a clip, I click on the clip in the event viewer and use CMD+OPT+2 to jump to the list view which gives me the longer filmstrip, then I just use CMD+OPT+1 to jump back to thumbnails when I'm done.

This isn't true. A mini-time line could be the default in each viewer. It wouldn't change anything except a much better overview of your media. I don't see why adding a mini-timeline has to add more steps in "loading" media. It's a much requested feature from my end for sure.

The only way I can read what you're saying is that it's purely there for show, and not an interactive UI element.

If that's the case then it seems pretty pointless. You'd still be scrubbing on the Event Browser thumbnail to scrub thru the clip- you'd just have an extra long thumbnail version underneath the Event Viewer, which I don't see the point of. The extended filmstrip in the list view is only useful because it's an actionable item- it gives you a longer scrubbing area- making marking more precise in and out points easier.

Scrubbing the actual Event Viewer window seems more logical- I guess accessed thru the list view, where you have to click on one clip at a time to make it "active".

Actually, selecting clips from the "list view" would make the clip filmstrip underneath the Viewer work as well- it just won't work with the thumbnail view, since the moment your mouse moves over another clip it replaces whatever was in the Event Browser.

Well it'd be an "active" control and not just a HUD / info-strip. This is something really bad with FCPX today. You're not "synced" with your media. You scrub on screen 1 and see the result on screen 2. Not very intuitive. Perhaps they'd need to add a "load" function like we have today. I'd prefer to have a "load" feature from the browser and then have the "scrub" feature active. This would probably help a lot with performance as well.

The above could keep the current form as well but I think the above would make a lot of FCP7-editors feel much more at home. Add back some proper timecode windows / data as well.

They should also rethink the secondary viewer. It's now called the "event viewer" which really limits it's function. I could be used for all kinds of "secondary viewer needs" - comparing frames during color correction for example or comparing edit A vs edit B (this would require us to be able to load sequences to either viewer A or B.

Like someone mentioned before the ability to lock a sequence to a given length is also good to have. It's a bit to "floating" as is now given one can work with it. It's great for edits that aren't so strict but for 15 / 30 / 45 TC's...

Visual roles or role lanes would be a great way to bring back flexible and yet more powerful tracks. We need them. Fine, a bunch of slacking editors will still have edits that are a mess but for us you like order it's virtually impossible to get now. And I'm just doing short-form TVC's.

The handling of sequences needs an overhaul. As stated I work with TVC's. A given project can have 100+ final edits in various versions, languages etc. Either make it more manageable with loads of folders / sequences. That's the easy way out. Moving the project-browser to the event browser might sort of do the trick. One less click at least to swap between different edits.

A better way would be to actually try to deal with "versions" in a clever way. Much like how we have "versions" in Aperture we could have "versions" and "masters" in FCPX. With metadata they can be tagged as "work in progress", "edit OK, audio NOT mixed" etc. This would make the "project browser" more powerful. Today it's just more limited than FCP7 for the most part.

To be honest - dealing with projects on the system-level is quite poor at the moment. It has a bunch of "requirements" (i.e. use FCPX to move or copy a project to another drive and / or system). which is very un-Appleistic). I think some have suggested the introduction of disc images and that FCPX should automatically create these as it's "project file". I guess there has to be some kind of negative side effect to that but as it stands FCPX is quite a mess on this part.

Batch Export. Please, this is needed. I'd really hate doing the 24 versions of a given project and then export them. PrPro has the same issue. FCP7 has not. Here it really doesn't matter if FCPX is 5X faster than FCP7 in the rendering since the user-intraction part it 24X worse.

Other things that would be nice is image sequence support and improved color correction features. FCPX is quite good on the later but adding white-balance and curves would be two very welcome features. Sort out the scopes would also make the app very nice for online work (i.e. the ability to view 2-4 scopes for a given viewer).

GUI customization was and is a huge feature of FCP7. Give us back that flexibility please, we all have different setups and needs!

Video out over the video card still feels iffy and needs work. PrPro is way better here. Even if better responsiveness here means less realtime effects it's quite poor at the moment. Again, FCP7 (and PrPro) doesn't have the lag FCPX has.

I've heard a lot of people vocing Motion-support and / or AE to motion capabilities. I'd rather see an "open FCPX project in app X" capability. In my case FCPX to After Effects is what I'd like a better work-flow for. Today I can do what I do in FCP7 but it's time-consuming and quite inflexible exporting each cut of each edit like I do.

There is probably more but that's a few things I've noticed while evaluating FCPX. We're still primarily running FCP7 still but testing FCPX and PrPro.

Just cutting my teeth on X but I like your list - all my "how do I do this" or "why can't I" moments fall under your request list umbrella. They got a great browser now make organization more user centric and make the timeline more flexible.

They seem to think X2Pro is headed in a direction that could mimic the FCP7 media manager. My worry with this is that when a third party takes care of it (for $150) this could let Apple off the hook for doing anything about it. I've owned X2Pro since day one, but the reason I really want this feature isn't for my files, but for the ones I receive. I do a fair amount of finishing work for others with Resolve and FCPX and I'm sick of getting 100GB of "used clips" for 30 second pieces...

This is indeed a hard one to call. To the overall user-base of X, audio export to a DAW might only be needed by a small percentage. If that's the case, are those users better served by a dedicated plugin supported by a company who's keenly invested in it's improvement.

On the other hand, FCPX is the only of the "big" NLEs to not support OMF/AAC export natively.

On the other hand it's also cheaper than AVID or Premier.

Is that functionality waiting in the wings to "Sherlock" X2Pro? Or is Apple content to let specific workflow requirements be satisfied by 3rd parties.

[Marcus Moore]"Is that functionality waiting in the wings to "Sherlock" X2Pro? Or is Apple content to let specific workflow requirements be satisfied by 3rd parties."

I had a recent email exchange with marquis tangentially related to this topic. The most interesting bit of info I got from them was "(we can't comment on) ...future products, but just so you're aware we are in discussions with Apple."

FWIW... ;-)

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~"It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools."~
~"The function you just attempted is not yet implemented"~

1. Magnetism off, or at least minimized and unselectable for some edits.
2. Roles. Loadable, colorable, role sets. Attached to events.
3. Keyword sets attached to each event vs being the same in each event.
4. Kill the bugs!
5. Fix the Quicktime -50 Error
6. Sony RAW support for FS700 (coming very soon)
7. Volume slider for media browser. Sometimes previewing a whoosh will knock me out of my chair.
8. CALM act support.
9. SliceX style animatting native to app.
10. The ability to add stabilization to multicam clips after they are used.
11. Vine, Instagram, alternative shaped video support.
12. A Pro Apps division of the app store designed for plugins. Trusted plugins.
13. The ability to group effects without tripping into motion. A 'favorites' right at the top.
14. Watching folders and automatically importing anything put into them.
15. An option to keep the playhead centered when playing video vs running off the screen. (cmd+spacebar for focused play)
16. Multiple editors working off of the same event.

13. AE imported into Motion
14. Send to motion. Live updating in FCPX from motion.
15. Send to Logic.
16. Logic Pro X.
17. VO tool auto defaults to whatever event the comp or project you're recording audio is part of.
18. Flash frame detection. Not just short clips, but an algorithm that scans for ultra-brief luma changes (when you're working with pre-edited clips, like an EPK).
19. A color bar of each clips thumbnail showing which section is actually being used in a comp or project.
20. Dupe clip detection over timeline.
21. Better and more simple project navigation.
22. The ability to move more than one project into folders at a time.
23. Stabilization ignoring erratic movement.
24. Post to vine. Post to instagram.
25. A preference allowing you to have default settings for every project, including commonly used smart folders, project/event setings, etc.
26. Eye dropper for white balance.
27. Fountain of youth.
28. Fixed length duration projects/comps that DO NOT EVER CHANGE OR GO OVER/UNDER.
29. Setting certain HD's as unusable for FCPX. Macintosh HD, for example.
30. Free mac pro with every purchase.

My experience with FCPX has been almost flawless about stability issues or bug. Not that I haven't stepped into one or two weird behaviors any now and then, but nothing really boring. So what I'd like to see is:
- an option for trimming clips when duplicating a project for archive
- an option for selecting "original media only" when duplicating a project for archive so that I don't have to delete the transcoded ones from the current project or to delete them after the duplication.
- an option to name the clips on import with a name that is somehow meaningful. It's true that the actual naming discourages actions from the finder, but I wish I could name them so that I can easily recognize clips for use in other applications, so that the name stays with the original media, not only within the event browser.
- ability to fill notes and comments fields to multiple clips in the inspector that will be retained in the events browser.
- a "select forward" command, so that I can use the position tool to slide all the timeline forward without having to change the timeline zoom and select all the clips with the mouse.
- change the "scale" indication so that it reflects the actual size. If I put a large graphic onto a 1080 timeline, it will be adapted to fit and be shown as 100%, while it isn't. I'd rather have it shown as it really is, so that I know how much I'm pushing a zoom in.
- ability of disconnecting drives containing events from within FCPX
Maybe some of the features are already there and I just missed them, but some aren't for sure.

My wish list is more specific, and it's something that I keep adding things to as I edit, and think what 'I would like'. It does not have a great chronology of most wanted, just a lot trough each other. For people who are desperate in loosing time ;-) :

- Being able to Scale or Stabilize Attributes on synchronized clips.

- Remove Attributes button

- If you scroll trough with JKL keys, and you do it very quick, you hear the audio pitch-perfect for the first seconds, and then it disappears. It would be great if it would stay like that.

- Being able to give color labels to projects in the Project Library

- Another behavior when putting multiple dissolves in a timeline. In FCP 7, it would add a dissolve everywhere it could, but if there wasn't enough media, it would not copy a dissolve there. This was very handy when you worked with a lot of clips that just follow each other coming from a recording device that splits long recordings in multiple files.
In FCP X now, you can only choose to create media for the transition, or just cancel and not have a a cross dissolve anywhere. If I'm not mistaken, the first releases of FCP X would give you more choices in this regard.
It's nice to have a combination of the old behavior and the potential new one (with creating extra media) and just have options of both in the dialog window you get. Because if now, you have a recording split in multiple files, and put a dissolve in between those clips with FCP X doing the 'creating extra media thing" you get a weird effect that's not wanted.

- A kind of batch export, and maybe support for kind of reference files?

- If you export for instance, 3 timelines in the background, you only see the first file by name.
The one below, awaiting, just say: 'Master File'. Why can't you say the name of the project or timeline? So you can get a quick idea of what you are already exporting and if you forgot anything.
If it's the same timeline you are exporting multiple times, with changes, let's have it say the name of the sequence with the date and exact time of the export?

- I don't know if this is by design or a bug: if I put multiple in-and out points, ranges as you say, in a clip, and I make them chronologically and push E to append to the primary storyline, it puts them in the wrong order in the timeline. If I make a range 1 and a range 2 in the same clip, in chronological order, FCP X puts it in the timeline as range 2 first, and range 1 second. It's completely opposite of normal thinking? If you have an interview that you want to go trough, it's more intuitive to have it in the same order as the interview. Now it ruins the multiple ranges-option. I can't remember this being so in FCP 10.0.6, but I could be wrong, so I don't know if this was introduced in 10.0.7?

- Synchronize clips seems to only use audio. According to the manual, it also used timecode, but we tried multiple times doing it with clips with the same timecode, and FCP X would never place them correct. In multicam this works correctly. It would be nice to get some more options there and let FCPX use timecode correctly to synchronize multiple audio/video clips.

- If you click Expand All in the menu for expanding video and audio, that it expands every clip in the timeline, INCLUDING the ones you put in the timeline AFTER you pushed the Expand All option. It reduces the amound of clicking. If you want to edit with an expanded view of audio seperately, you click expand all, and edit the way you want. If you put new clips in the timeline, you don't have to press again and again in the menu.

- If you have a synchronized clip with R3D material, making sure the spatial conform works like it does with a normal rough R3D clip.

- More RAW controls from REDCINE in the R3D Hud, including (big one) the eyedropper tool to very quickly and automatically set white balance.

- Have a simple white balance tool in your standard color tools, like the one from RED. Let it be a tool you can switch on or off. The Match-Color behaviour doesn't work very well, and the older 3-way color corrector in FCP7 was miles ahead on some of this manual control.

- A timecode HUD with much more timecode options. Seeing in one view the timecodes of everything in the timeline (like the old timecode overlay in FCP7), optional of course. Being able to COPY and PASTE a timecode from a clip instead of manually having to feed it always, like you could in FCP 7. You could just copy the timecode from the viewer of canvas.

- A well made timecode reader/generator effect, not only a generator. (have both). Like the old one: read timecode, generate one, custom, ... Now, we have to work trough compound clips with timecode generators above, which seems unnecessary.

- More options from Color, including but not limited to color wheels. Tracker. Custom shapes, that can be keyframed, including in their shape points. Sharpening, denoising,... Maybe have a seperate Color Room? (same with Audio?)

- If you click to have Proxy Media Playback, put a warning side if media hasn't been converted to Proxy yet, but don't have it be offline completely. It sometimes doesn't make sense to transcode EVERYTHING in your timeline to Proxy Media. Only being able to transcode a portion of it, and just see a small subtle warning sign in the rest without hindering your ability to work with it, would be much better!

- Fade Handles on seperate Audio Components.

- Fade Handles on video?

- Prores LT as a codec option to optimize!

- In the preferences, have playback for Optimized Media or Original Media be 2 seperate options? Or just some more flexibility.

- Better support for working with networked storage! I'm not talking about users working on the same project on the same timeline (although the patents I saw online about guardians etc. were interesting) but just having the program work easily with networked storage over ethernet!

- If you open the HUD of a Smart Collection, it seems I cannot make the HUD bigger or smaller. Sometimes if I have long names of Keyword Collections of which the first 3 words are the same, I cannot see which to click on or off if I put a Keyword on one of the parameters of a Smart Collections. I don't know if this is a bug or not.

- At the retiming menu, if you click it, have a custom option to manually give in a percentage.

- Custom resolutions when making a project! With a way of making it a preset! It's possible now trough a compound clip and work-around, so it must be possible technically, but just the option needs to be 'activated' in the dialog window when making a new project.

- At Audio Enchancements, at the background Noise Removal option, have a small button to set the noise print, as you could with Soundtrack Pro. I don't know if the technology now in FCP X is the same as in Soundtrack Pro, but I'm getting much worse results (frankly, I never get good ones, and thus never use it) when using the remove background noise option in FCP X. Maybe having the option to manually set the noise print, will get better results back?

- An audio mixer! Maybe have some seperate Audio Mixing 'room', like you could have with Color Correction. FCP X seems to have great technologies under the hood (some of Color, some of Logic, some of Soundtrack Pro, some of Cinema Tools), but just have the tools deeper would really make it a super-NLE. Not needing to round-trip, but still being able to do so much in an NLE that can seem so simple, but yet can get very deep, is VERY appealing, and would get many people to switch to Macs and FCP X. Look at Color... Yes, you could say Resolve is better, but not needing to round trip, and being able to do very good corrections in the same program where you do the finishing, compositing, editing, ... is really tempting. If you don't want to use it, you don't need to. But I miss Color, and in the same way I think much more of Soundtrack Pro needs to return to FCP X.
Maybe audio mix trough color coded roles or so?

- Being able in the Copy Paste Dialogue box, to paste seperate color corrections, and have them being applied ABOVE whatever you have done to that clip earlier. And not only replace it. Maybe have a small button in the dialogue box where you can choose to ADD your attributes to the clip you are pasting it too.

- Being able to give Color Corrections names, instead of just the automated numbers. And also being able to move a color correction up or down in the effects stacking order, like you can do with other effects.

- Being able in a way to very easily put a video-only dissolve on a clip, without messing too much with detaching audio, secondary timelines, ... Just have a cross dissolve video-only transition in the transition browser or something. Same thing with making an audio-only cross dissolve with a dedicated short cut (it used to be ALT+CMD+T in FCP7)! These little things suddenly can make FCPX a much more slow tool to use.

- Have a quick way of putting audio back to a clip after detaching it. (and if they are out of sync, maybe have a dialogue box or something to choose if you want to keep it out of sync, or put it back to it's default?)

- Have out of sync-markers when detaching audio... Or have better solutions for working with a recording where all the audio is for instance 4 frames off.

- Have a smart Render function, as FCP 7 had where it simply copies original media if you are doing simple cut-cut operations. Now this only seems to be with Prores LT, but not with XDCAM material for instance…

- Have the Background Render option be REALLY background. So for instance, when you are working, it keeps rendering, but like with one core or something. So it's low taxing on the system, but you can really keep working. Now it stops if you do something in the program, and you really let it do a lot, it kind of makes your computer super super slow.
Like the generating waveform that seems to pause whenever you work in the program. It's not logical.

- Being able to also put Events in Folders, like you can with Projects.

- Also having Skimmer info in the timeline, showing for instance timecode of the original clip.

- If you have a (raw) clip in the Event Browser, and click Open in Timeline, and for instance, put a timecode generator on it, and you put it in your timeline, it shows the timecode generator on the clip in the timeline. So far, so good. But if you then, in your Event Browser, after the edit, use the same process to remove the timecode generator or make it invisible, it doesn't update in the timeline. The work-around is to first put your clip in a compound clip, but I think it's a unnecessary work-around which can cause potential errors. You suddenly have every clip you need to use like that twice in the project, and you have to make sure the starting timecode of your compound clip is the same as the one of the clip itself. (UPDATE, I can imagine this works the way it does, because you like having that a normal clip in the timeline is completely independent… I get the logic, but then you should just get a better option for having timecode on a clip that you want to remove instead of compounding every clip first).

- Better support for using FCPX with 3 displays. On a rMBP connected with 2 other displays, it will always use your laptop as a standard second display. The only work-around is closing the lid, let FCPX put your content on the other display, and opening the lid again. Very silly work-around, especially if you have to do it in front of clients.

- If you have a bunch of clips and you all change their scale properties trough the transform tools in the viewer, the slider in the inspector will still say it's 100 procent while the clip clearly isn't on 100 pro cent. Maybe I got this because of working with compound clips, I don't know if it's the same with raw clips, but anyhow, if I use the inspector to change all the clips their scale, they all update correctly in the inspector if I click them afterwards. Strangely enough also, when I use the transform tools of the Viewer to change the Position of clips, they all update fine in the inspector. It should be the case that if you scale a clip trough the Transform controls in the viewer, the inspector should update too, so you have some exact values you used, so you can check immediately if a clip is on it's full scale and/or re-use that value in the inspector on other clips.

- Please make it possible to have your transform, crop and color correction tools in the inspector change in stacking order together with effects. Being able for instance, to put a crop ABOVE or BELOW a 3rd party effect for instance. Now there are many work-around necessary (compounding) to do this. (and some things are just impossible)

- When doing a split edit on a connected clip and the audio starts a lot earlier then the video (J-cut), and you then you collapse the clip again, and then put a dissolve on the video, which causes it to become a secondary storyline, it cuts the early audio off. That doesn't make sense (if it's not a bug). A way to solve this, would being able to just put a transition on a clip (dissolve) without it becoming a secondary storyline. I get the logic behind this, but in practice it causes me a LOT of unnecessary clicks in a timeline, while the other way around, if I want to have secondary clips become a storyline, I can always have the option trough the menu command or contextual menu. Please change this behaviour. Maybe it's not a good idea to have a connected clip become a connected storyline automatically after putting a transition on it. In my experience, in 99 procent of the cases, I really have to do a lot of extra clicking around, and it almost never saves me time.

- The background Dashboard hud dissapears when going into another application. Not that handy.

- This feature could maybe be a work-around for the dashboard dissapearing, although it would be nice to have both: In the Share Monitor program, have a look at what you are exporting in every program (FCPX, Motion 5, Compressor 4). They all share the same engine. Having the Share Monitor open and being able to see what you are exporting in FCP X next to your regular Compressor Batch would be great. Having a seperate tab or something like that.

- In a Smart Collection, also being able to use Clip Type: Synchronized Clip. Now you have to do it trough Text, and then add Sync somewhere. A bit of a work-around.

- When making a new compound clip, being able to immediately say which keyword it needs to have. Now, if you need to make a lot of them, and you are making compound clips from clips in a keyword-collection (which we do, to have a timecode generator on them, because we miss having a timecode hud), you always get thrown back into your Event, instead of staying within that keyword collection, and then you have to manually search the compound clip and assign a keyword to the compound clip again.

- In an Event, in your viewing options, you can choose to display: "no rating or keyword selections". I like that option, but it would be extra nice if you have an extra viewing option with separate: "no rating" "no keyword", next to the excisting option of both.

- Being able to have a Proxy with Alpha channel (have the software detect that automatically? Make Prores 4444 in those cases?)

- Being able to change the starting timecode of a compound clip after you have made it.

- A lot of effects, if you put an overlay on them, for easy manipulation in the viewer, it also renders out in your export. This is for instance true by Tokyo Pipinator, as Dashwood 3D Studio. Very dangerous, because you never would think that it would export overlays for editing. I can understand that maybere there is a limitation in Motion 5 that prevents it, but if anything can be done, it would be nice. We have already done a lot of re-renders because of this.

- Being able to adjust values of Loudness parameter in Audio Enchancements with numeric values. Now you have numeric values for the Loudness sliders (Amound & Uniformity) but you cannot adjust the numbers directly, you have to use the sliders.

- In the transform Tools, have full Rotation controls. So for instance, only with the Y axis for instance.

- Better backup, versioning solution: someone on a forum said that he knew of one professional audio application (forgot the name) that had like unlimited undo's within a project. Even AFTER you would have closed the program and re-opened it again. For a program like FCPX, that doesn't even have a Save As option, or a Save option, or a very transparant History function, this would seem like a no-brainer. And it would fit into Apple's OSX vision of versions, but on a professional level.

- The last view of your viewing modes of your clips in the timeline is very small, which makes it very handy if you are working with many layers and don't need to see thumbnails. It would be great to have fade handles for audio in that viewing mode. And maybe also have an expanded audio components view in that mode, but I would consider that less important.

- Having Snapping also work with for instance, doing retiming (with Hold Frames) on multiple secondary storylines above each other.

- In Motion5, in the Browser, also have column view like you have in the Finder. It makes navigating trough your files much easier.

- In both the Project Library and beneath the timeline you can see how long a project is. Very useful, but could you make it a neutral timecode value? Now for instance, a project that is 21 minutes says: 21:33:14 for instance. But in your mind, you always think: is it 21 hours long? It would be nice to get a normal value in that case of 00:21:33:14.

- If there is nothing in a secondary storyline anymore, it seems redundant to let it stay in the timeline. If you select every clip in a secondary storyline, do the lift from storyline command, it's just dead space staying in the timeline. If there is a good reason or logic behind this, I can accept, but if not, maybe delete this?

- If you have for instance 4 layers of video, with each of them having 4 clips next to each other… Once you make a couple of clips in a layer of video into a secondary storyline there is a minimal height difference. This becomes annoying when working with multiple layers of video, and you want to check and go from one of them to the other. (for instance, by putting transitions between them).

- Normally if you have Shift pressed in, and move a clip vertically in your structure, it stays on the same place horizontally. Very handy. But I noticed in 10.0.8 when dragging a secondary storyline with a compound clip in it, with Shift pressed, that it would not stay on the same place and drift, no matter what I did. A bug?

- At this point it seems impossible if you use Match EQ, to apply the match with the same clip, but just an other audio component. If I have one clip with 2 tracks of audio components, and I want to match channel 1 with channel 2, I cannot do so. I need to copy the clip, and make sure it's physically another clip on the timeline. This seems a lot of unnecessary steps and gets in the way of what the whole Audio Component feature is about.

- Bug: sometimes the playhead switches to a completely other point in the timeline. Others have reported this as well.

- Bug: sometimes, when you are working with for instance an empty primary storyline, but 5 layers of connected clips, and you zoom out in your timeline,suddenly you see extra layers, as if FCPX did not move them horizontally but vertically. When you zoom in again, they seem normal again.

- Being able to drop a complete folder in Compressor. And make Smart Folders or Quees. Compressor has Job Actions now, but it would be great if you could tell it to use every movie that arrives in a folder (including things you are currently rendering out in FCPX, but you are leaving the computer overnight), to compress that to a couple of things. I know you SORT OF can get that now by sharing in FCPX to multiple things, but it would be a nice feature for Compressor to have too.

- Better documentation. For instance, when an update comes out, it would be good to have a Release Notes or something, where you can find EVERYTHING that has been changed. Every bug that has been squashed, every new feature that has been added, what under the hood changes has been made (like the fact that FCPX started copying sim-links instead of full media files when copying an Event, for instance, something that I liked, but wasn't documented clearly in an update, so I had to find out trough a MacBreak Studio episode)

These are some impressive lists for features. I'll lower the bar for my top three:

1) Fix the bugs.

2) Give me back the Favorites folder! I want a single global one that appears all the time or at the top of the list regardless of which tab is selected. I want to be able to put something from any category in this folder. I bet this would save me upwards of an hour every day...

3) Give me an option where the playhead stays in view and the timeline scrolls to keep up. The time I'd save zooming in and output would be epic.

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." - Winston Churchill

I'm not sure how you can't set up a pretty persistent favourites folder using a Smart Collection.

Any clip or clip selection you tag as a "Favourite" automatically goes into that "folder". If you need to be more specific, name the favourites as "Global" or "Amazing", and add that text as an additional condition in the Smart Collection settings.

[Marcus Moore]"Any clip or clip selection you tag as a "Favourite" automatically goes into that "folder". If you need to be more specific, name the favourites as "Global" or "Amazing", and add that text as an additional condition in the Smart Collection settings.

Is there something I'm missing here?"

I wasn't referring to clips or clip sections, I was referring to transitions, effects, etc. In short I want what we had way back in FCP Studio...

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." - Winston Churchill

Why not just temp rename your "favorite" Effects and Transitions with a space in front of the name?

That will sort them to the top of your Effects menus.

You need more than that?

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com - video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Matt Trubac]"Not to the original clip of a multiclip. I believe in legacy I could collapse the multiclip and match frame back to the original clip."

Yes, but you didn't have to collapse the multiclip to do it. F to match back to the original clip, option-apple F to match back to a new instance of the same multiclip, and Sync-On to keep sync with the multiclip.

If you can't perform these 3 functions your dealing with a sub standard multicam tool.

I'm getting really high quality edits out of the system now, limited only by my ability really.

Most of the bugs that used to totally frustrate me have disappeared and its very rare these days to have spinning ball freezes or have to revert to the ultimate sanction - Force Quit.

I would love to see improvements in the Color and Audio department - and I think these will be addressed. I would also like to be able to send selections direct to Motion and back without having to create exported movies.

The wish lists in this thread are really detailed, well thought out and mostly very desirable and I would just like to add a few simple visual organisational ideas.

1. Ability to copy / paste list view in events library so that it can be printed off - added to documents. You can copy and paste text into FCPX - be great to be able to do it the other way round to share with collaborators or clients.

2. Ability to organise Effects Browser within FCPX - could be a simple hierarchal list by adding numerals or letters to Fx within browser. Or maybe Artificial Intelligence could create an 'Effects Manager'

3. Split Video and Audio Effects into two windows.

4. Ability to resize / split / arrange / save all windows in FCPX just like we used to be able to do and just how we still can do in Compressor.

5. Ability to view project library as a simple list - without the small viewer window - it all takes up too much screen estate and can be hard to navigate around.

6. Ability to change clip height with a keyboard command rather than opening the clip appearance box.

Top of the list for me for substandard non professional editing tool would be the inability to edit multiple modern formats in the same timeline.

Or maybe the inability to apply interlaced pulldown to media.

Or the inability to edit subframe audio.

Or the inability to edit text directly over video.

Or the lack of motion blur and ease in/out on standard transitions.

Or the inability to sync multicam audio and video without an expensive plugin.

I could go on, but the point being that if we're going to define substandard by the lack of some feature, then I can rag on just about any NLE.

Premiere Pro just came out with an update. They list about 25 new features. 22 of them I didn't know it DIDN't have. And I feel like any editor without those 22 would be substandard. But somehow Premiere is being heralded as the next great thing. 99% of the features added in the CC version are simply bringing it up to speed with Legacy and Avid AND in many aspects FCP X.

[Bret Williams]"Top of the list for me for substandard non professional editing tool would be the inability to edit multiple modern formats in the same timeline. "

Since nearly all of my work is in multicma mode, and nearly all of my source material is 1080P30 ProRes 422, I could give a rat's ass about multiple formats but poor multicam performance is a deal breaker. Apparently we all have different needs.

My reference to substandard was strictly to the multicam feature being discussed. For instance Edius looks like a great NLE to me and I would have jumped to it a year ago but it's multicam feature is substandard for complex work - ok for cutting a music video, or any other video that only requires simple angle switching, but not up to snuff for the kind of work I, and many other's do. This does not make Edius substandard, it makes this one tool in Edius substandard.

So now that I haven't mentioned your pet NLE and you don't have to go all defensive, do you get the distinction?

I had been led to believe X's multicam feature was very complete, so it surprised me that it didn't allow for all the basic match-back options a multicam feature should have.

As far as PPro goes, one of the new 25 features listed is the ability in multicam to match back to both multicam source and original clip, so it looks like they are catching up.

Well my point would be that if it makes it a substandard tool for you, because of lack of a particular feature then the multi-cam tool in FCS would be extremely substandard for ME because of it's lack of my necessary features. Defining something substandard because it's lacking a particular feature is suspect to me. That was my point about other NLEs and their lack of certain features. Tongue in cheek I guess. Because they're not substandard tools at all. But by their lack of a particular feature they would be by your definition. Which is just semantics I guess. Carry on. :)

[Bret Williams]"the multi-cam tool in FCS would be extremely substandard for ME because of it's lack of my necessary features. Defining something substandard because it's lacking a particular feature is suspect to me."

About 2 years ago, when X first came out I listed what I thought were the basic and essential features of a multicam tool, in expectation of the time when X would come out with one. These features are independent of any other aspect of the host NLE. Your complaints are about what's lacking in FCP7, not what's lacking in it's multicam implementation.

Is it possible to criticize one aspect of X without criticizing all of it, or do I have to be a member of the club first.

Place your playhead over any clip on a multicam timeline and press SHIFT+F. The multiclip in the Event Browser will instantly show the original media of that clip inside it, matched exactly to where your playhead is on the timeline. So what's the problem?

Oh, wait. That's exactly what you're saying. Well, for whatever reason people want it to bring up the original source clip. I'm sure there are numerous reasons why you might want one or the other. Should be a modifier key. If you could at least dig into the multi cam clip and have the playhead be at the same spot, then you could match from there as a second step. Or, as the case often is, make some sort of alteration to just that bit of the underlaying clip. I often have to steady a particular section of a long hand held interview. If I steady the whole thing, it has to zoom WAAAAAAAY in because it's based on the movemet across the whole clip. If you slice the clip up into just those particular sections and just steady that, then it does well. You can't add smooth cam to an instance of the multicam clip in the project (sequence). That would be a nice feature. I think it's been mentioned.

1) Robust, collaborative workflow, so two people can open the same event at the same time with better network support.
2) The ability to activate or deactivate events and projects so they don't have to all load.
3) Better media management so you can consolidate a project.

[Brett Sherman]"Honestly, I'd be a happy camper if they added 3 things:

1) Robust, collaborative workflow, so two people can open the same event at the same time with better network support."

Agreed

[Brett Sherman]"2) The ability to activate or deactivate events and projects so they don't have to all load."

I know it's a 3rd party app, but Event Manager X is awesome here. Very powerful, and since X opens really fast, it's not a big deal to me to have it quit and restart if I need to change a set. Best $5 I ever spent. :-)

[Brett Sherman]"3) Better media management so you can consolidate a project."

Yes. :-)

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~"It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools."~
~"The function you just attempted is not yet implemented"~

[Charlie Austin]"I know it's a 3rd party app, but Event Manager X is awesome here. Very powerful, and since X opens really fast, it's not a big deal to me to have it quit and restart if I need to change a set. Best $5 I ever spent. :-)"

With my backup system, it really F's it up using the Event Manager X because events and projects can be in two separate locations. The only way to use Event Manager X is to manually backup. Plus quiting and starting is a PITA. I'm using sparse bundles right now, but would rather not.

Plus, there would be other useful features of having X control it. It could activate the events it needs when you open a project. Whereas with Event Manager you have to manually do it. My last project used about 50 events. It just would take a long time with Event Manager to figure it all out.

[Brett Sherman]"With my backup system, it really F's it up using the Event Manager X because events and projects can be in two separate locations."

Gotcha, I'm using the "Backups" app (works great btw) which sees the hidden folders as well, so that's not an issue for me...

[Brett Sherman]"My last project used about 50 events. It just would take a long time with Event Manager to figure it all out."

:-0 Yeah, I can see how that would be a nightmare. I try to have as few Events as possible for each job. FWIW you can set up "sets" now in event Manager to make this scenario a little more uh... manageable. I don't know how having an event manager style interface in the app would be any better though, unless they make it so you don't need to quit/restart when you load and unload Events/Projects. Guess we'll see what's in store soon enough. ;-)

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~"It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools."~
~"The function you just attempted is not yet implemented"~